Parallel sump ?

[waynes world]

That is a low turnover you are running, my last tank only 250g was a 6x turnover, i am saying 6-8x as the fish i am planning P bass, cats, Plecos etc, inc an Aro or two are messy, just want to make sure there is enough, and you cant really over filter. ^x will be plenty i think aswell, even then the power consumption will be low now. if i end up going lower TO then i will get some power heads fitted to give that little more flow in the tank instead of having to many returns going in.

Thanks for the help Alex

 

[aldiaz33]

Where I live electricity is very expensive (up to $0.35/KWHr), so that's the main reason I'm only running around 2x per hour. If I ever had water quality issues, I would increase flow to see if that would resolve the issue, but that's never been a problem. Some argue that the slower flow = more contact time with biological filter media, but to be honest, I have no clue what is best...all I know is that I have never had ammonia or nirtrite readings since I first cycled the tank ~3 years ago.

For very heavily stocked tanks, higher turnover may be beneficial, but when you think of large ponds and public aquaria, they only turnover 1x per hour. There is a huge 100,000G Amazon River display at Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco- I took a behind the scenes tour of the filtration room and the tour guide said they only turn the tank over 1x per hour. They have hundreds of pounds of fish (it's not lightly stocked by any means) and it seems to work out just fine. Just throwing that out there for conversation...I think 6 to 8x is perfectly reasonable. When I see people claim that you need 10x+, that's when I start shaking my head...I think that's unnecessary and just a waste of electricity.

 

[waynes world]

You have given me more thought now, i used to think as you and the slower the TO then the better as more slower contact with the media etc, but then the more i got into fish keeping it just got stuck in my head about the TO rate, all saying you need 6x or 8x even as you say 10x, which i think is a bit OTT, i had three Rays and a few shoals plus an Arowana and they had a 4x turnover, all fine with them aswell.
There is nothing to say that i cant go less turnover and increase at a later date if need be, but if the big boys do it then what do us with mere tiny tanks compared need a massive TO.

Think i should start with a middle of the road and go 5x and go from there. Well from the strat the tank wont be fully stocked so no need for even a massive filter, although obviously it will be from the start, cant be changing filters now half way through.